


How Far Would You Go

by QueanBysshe



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Dracula - Freeform, F/M, Fat Character, Fatpride not fat shaming, Monster Hunters, Plus-Size Character, Team-up, Vampires, casefic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-18 21:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18126788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueanBysshe/pseuds/QueanBysshe
Summary: Bond keeps running into the same colleague at work; her targets are always just beside his: Ernst Blofeld, head of the criminal underground organisation S.P.E.C.T.R.E, who is chasing after the same youth serum that was tested on Bond--or so MI6 believes.Who is this mystery woman, who uses a crossbow instead of a gun, and who belongs to no agency but her own? Bond may be digging a deeper grave than even he can climb out of, this time....





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [How Far Would You Go](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/464891) by Matthew Whim ft. Áurea. 



> Special thanks and dedication to Áurea, Matthew Whim, Daniel Emmett, Epicnicity, The Aviators, Monitor Blown, and the other songwriters and musicians out there making their own Bond themes. Y'all're something else. Please go check out the Bond Themes these talented people have created over [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6cC39uio0N2BTsIVNE0g0Yugcgu98UU_), on my youtube playlist for them (there's a 'bonus track' of a score composed by another bond fan, Roland Mair-Gruber).

Michaela wasn’t used to jobs where she was chasing something across borders, let alone seas; but this was also the oldest one she’d ever heard of, and Everett had called the right number when he’d realised just how old it was.

Currently, she was hidden on a roof lining up a shot, when she heard a voice, very softly, to her right.

‘I don’t know who you’re with, love, but a bolt takes a lot longer than a bullet.’

Michaela didn’t look away from her target; she had all the time in the world to line up the shot, she always told herself, hearing her grandfather’s words from when he’d been teaching her how to shoot. ‘Watch your words, his hearing’s better than you think.’

\-------007--------007-------007-------

Bond wasn’t sure of the woman sniper on the roof. She was dressed in urban camouflage, but it wasn’t military, nothing about her—from her ample frame to her cowgirl boots—was standard-issue in any country. She also didn’t have a sniper’s rifle. Bond knew that Q could see what he could, thanks to the subdermal implant. There was nothing for it, he crept across the roof. It wasn’t the first time he’d run into an agent after the same target—or a guard. He’d use his charm to find out whether she was ally or enemy.

Her voice marked her as American immediately, but it was one of the thick accents, with a hint of Caribbean, that marked her as from a particular port of the American South. He settled beside her, close enough to kill if necessary, but not close enough that she’d think so.

‘I’m listening,’ he said, quieter.

_007, you can’t possibly ally with her, she’s not CIA, she’s no known ally. Disengage._

She held herself like a professional, even if she wasn’t one; her eyes never wavered from their target, and she was waiting, patient as a veteran like himself.

‘I’m Bond,’ he murmured, softly as a lover. ‘James Bond.’

She squeezed off her shot, and he didn’t stop her.

_Bond!_

The bolt hit straight through the underarm, into the heart of the person speaking to Bond’s target. He’d known that, as soon as he’d estimated her trajectory. She had to factor much more wind turbulence than he did, and aim slightly more off. Q wouldn’t know that, though; he relied on numbers for that, not experience. There was immediate action, below them; and Bond had to take off as _his_ target did, spooked by the assassination, wrongly thinking it had been aiming for _her_.

‘Helsing,’ the archer said, just as Bond got to the edge of the roof, ready to give chase. ‘Michaela Helsing.’

He looked back at her once. ‘Nice to meet you, Ms Helsing,’ he said, and jumped.


	2. Chapter 2

M did not reprimand him, she knew him better than that. He did, however, note that Michaela Helsing now had a dossier, and read it while Q’s department went over his car and gadgets, having to log every detail of data, wear, and repair assessment. It was usually a long wait, and Bond had taken to using it to read paperwork.

Michaela Helsing didn’t have a rap sheet, and her social media painted her as a homesteader who rescued animals… and modelled her own plus-size lingerie. Bond took a luxurious moment to enjoy the picture she offered up to the public. Creamy skin, long auburn hair thrown over one side of her face, falling in waves

She also spent a lot of money on weapons; but she wasn’t the usual American gun-hoarder—she was strange, with her crossbow and Kevlar, raw silver and oddly-specific bones. And strange, in MI6’s book, meant she was now under low-level surveillance. She’d interrupted an agent, she was now someone to watch.

Bond hoped he’d run into her again, hopefully under circumstances where they could spend a little more time together….

\-------007-------007-------007-------

‘Good hunt, Michaela?’ Victoria asked, as she met Michaela at the airport in New York City. With her was her ever-present driver and submissive, a vampire named Dmitri. He was one of the rare ones that actually _liked_ the increased hunger that age brought, and therefore resisted the bloodbaths most vampires resorted to, after reaching about five hundred or so. New York was the only place someone like a vampire wasn’t out of place. Everyone wore black, everyone was strange, in New York City.

‘Yes,’ Michaela said, ‘but bad flight,’ she said. Even though it had been first-class, she hadn’t slept at all, and was half-draining the large bottle of water Victoria handed her. Michaela didn’t fly well, it ran in her family. It wasn’t her ears popping so much as the lack of oxygen doing a number on her.

She slept on Victoria’s bed while she and Dmitri shut his custom-built box (they never called it anything but ‘box’, and it was disguised as simply a level-change in their apartment) and did what they always did when they were together in it. Michaela passed out on the bed, and didn’t wake up until well into the morning, when she woke up to the smell of coffee.

‘You want to debrief during breakfast or after?’ Dmitri asked, handing her a demitasse. Michaela sat on the counter stools, which she’d built herself as a housewarming gift to Victoria, and sipped the coffee. It was very good coffee, not bitter, just smoky and delicately savoury. Dmitri went back to rolling out pastry (vampires made very good pasty chefs—they always had cold hands).

‘Heard of any hunters named James Bond?’

Dmitri thought on it as he worked on the cyclic motions of making filo dough, before saying, ‘No.’

‘Hm,’ Michaela said, ‘I met him on the roof, he was after the contact my target was talking to.’

She went on with her debrief, and didn’t think about James Bond again until she was on the train home, sitting on the A to 242nd street. She turned to a new page in her notebook, and started writing everything she remembered about him, then stared at the words, as the world rushed past, as the commuters around her got off, got on, read their tablets, or books, or caught up on their favourite shows, in the signal-less oblivion underground.

Who was he? Why had he been there? Michaela had never brushed up against someone like him before. There was something about him, a movement and a way like an old Hunter, but he was young enough to be in the second arrogant phase, when you were experienced enough to know certain things, had experienced at least one screw up, but hadn’t gotten the near-death experience (usually) that made you humble and reluctant to teach.

He hadn’t talked over her, he hadn’t ignored her, hadn’t interrupted with questions enough to break her concentration. He’d watched, listened, stayed quiet. Respected her. Michaela was used to having to fight for respect—from her fellow Hunters, from uniforms, hell, from _customers_. But this man—handsome, she hadn’t failed to write down—had just given it to her without any effort. It was rare enough to seem addictive.

She got back aboveground determined to run into him again.


	3. Chapter 3

Michaela picked up the strange number. ‘Hello, who’s this?’

‘Michaela, what the fuck! What the fuck, Michaela, who did you kill?’

‘Everett? Honey, what’s going on?’

He sounded like he was running, and the number hadn’t been the one in her contacts.

‘A bunch of suits were at my house when I got home from walking the dog, I’m on one of my emergency burners. They were CIA, Michaela. What the hell did—no, I know you just did what you always do. Fuck.’

Michaela’s stomach dropped. Everett was always risking everything to do the grifting and hacking he did for the community, since he relied on being deeply enmeshed in the system to have money to eat and pay rent. ‘Everett, where are you headed?’

‘Theron’s place, out in the woods.’

‘Honey, _be careful_.’ Michaela wasn’t the only one who didn’t like that Everett’s partner was, herself, a monster. Theron was ancient, but not any kind of nameable species—like so many of the things Hunters went after, she was a Something Else Entirely. Then again, Michaela never said that to Victoria.

‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘I mean the _kudzu_ ,’ Michaela lied, realising if she trusted Dmitri, she may as well trust Theron.

‘…Oh.’

‘And the _suits_ , obviously.’

‘Obviously. I’m glad I never just leave things on and working, when I’m not home.’

‘The blessings of a cat,’ Michaela said, knowing full well Paperjam was the reason for that. The kitten was only nine months old, and Everett had never had baby animals or cats of any age, before, having always adopted older dogs. He’d had to learn quickly that an unattended cord was a plaything and a chew toy when the kitten ruined a data transfer (luckily he’d picked the _data_ cable, and not the _power_ cable).

‘Hallelu,’ Everett said dryly. ‘Goddamn. God _damn_. Well, we know this Bond guy is important enough that the CIA doesn’t want civilians googling him. Didn’t find anything, by the way. Like, blank. Google didn’t even pull up _bad_ results. You saw a very different kind of spook, on that roof.’

‘Jesus,’ Michaela said, waving to Grant as she came up her drive. ‘Hi Grant, just me.’

‘Heard ya comin,’ she muttered, sitting on her porch in the well-painted white swing she kept there, her faithful cat, Marge, by her side. She was one of the rare _retired_ Hunters, and lived a short walk from the train station, letting others of the community that were going into the city use her drive as an informal parking lot.

On the other side of the phone, Michaela heard a similar greeting from Theron, as she climbed into her truck, backed out of the long driveway, and started for home.

\-------007-------007-------007-------

‘What about the target she killed?’

‘An informant. Not noteworthy.’ M’s tone was dismissive, and Bond didn’t respond. She paused, huffing. ‘You’re interested in that?’ she said finally, and he heard her audibly turn up her nose.

‘You’re not?’

‘Well, suffice to say I thought you had a type.’

‘I do,’ Bond said, crossing his legs. ‘Pretty girls.’

She paused. ‘You mean that.’

‘And you didn’t,’ he said, grinning. ‘When are you going to stop testing me, M?’

‘Oh, maybe after the next one,’ she said, like she always did, and they got back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Hungry for more? Come check in on [my discord channel](https://discord.gg/jPxA2xW).


End file.
